Melodic Lover was a CD originally released in 2008. It received an iTunes digital release on the same day as the CD. Now, almost eight years later, Universal randomly decided to release another digital album with longer edits and more songs, some of which originally appeared on FARM’s Love Para series. Right now it’s only available on Amazon JP and a few other Japanese stores.

Two months after the revival of the Rave Mix series, Avex went on to release another digital non-stop mix by Remo-con. Unfortunately the series went back into hibernation after the second release, and it doesn’t look like Avex have any plans to revisit again anytime soon.

Avex’s Rave Mix 001 came out in August of 2013, but despite the numbering it seemed destined to be a one-off release. Enter 2015, when Avex randomly decided to revisit the series, this time with a digital non-stop mix mixed by the one and only Remo-con.

Sequel to Tokyo Girls Party. Interestingly, the iTunes/digital version actually came out a week earlier than the physical version. The digital version also includes both full versions as well as the same non-stop mix featured on the CD, but is only 1100 yen. I’m glad to see that trend continue.

Dancemania lives! Oh, and so do I 😀 As you may or may not have noticed, the blog hasn’t really been updated for a few months now. In addition to a lack of motivation and being busy, there just hasn’t been all that much to write about. I intended on starting things up again next year with a renewed focus (sorry, no more non-dance Exit Tunes releases), but had to break my hiatus to bring news of a new Dancemania release!

That’s right, after a break of its own, Dancemania comes back with a new digital release. The last release in the series was Zipmania All Best Mix almost two years ago exactly. And while a digital release isn’t exactly ideal, it’s nice to know that Universal still think that the Dancemania brand still has value. The album art even has the squiggly mascot! Here’s hoping this means that there’ll be a proper anniversary release next year, which will mark 20 years since the release of Dancemania 1 back in 1996.

Now for the bad news: the tracklist. It’s mostly EDM, which is fine since that’s what dance music sounds like today. What’s not okay is including tracks like “Beauty and a Beat” or “Hangover” from 2012. Thankfully, there are some more recent tracks that actually debuted in 2015, but they’re too few and far between. I wouldn’t mind if Dancemania returned as an EDM mix series, but put some effort into it, Universal!

The album is available on iTunes Japan as well as other Japanese digital stores.